Forcing me to become a concubine? Remarrying the Ninth Prince, she'll be pregnant all over the

These gentle words struck a chord with Wei Wujiu.

He hugged her tightly, feeling both touched and delighted, and kissed her forehead: "But what about you? I can't rest easy knowing you're traveling alone."

"Then why don't you send Night Hawk to me? He's highly skilled and will definitely be able to protect me." To avoid making him worry, Lin Wantang casually made a request.

Wei Wujiu thought for a moment and said, "No, although he is highly skilled, he is also very resourceful. Let's leave Li Jinzhi to you. He is good at light footwork and is very good at dealing with people. He can easily help you with your tasks."

Lin Wantang didn't mind and nodded with a smile.

Time waits for no one. After agreeing, the two quickly parted ways. Most of the people followed Wei Wujiu to the military camp where they were stationed. Lin Wantang, along with Li Jinzhi and Zhang Jin, rode swiftly and arrived at the village after two days of crossing mountains and valleys.

Looking down at the rows of stilted houses scattered across the mountain, with wisps of smoke rising from their chimneys, this place in the dense forest and mountain stream can be described as a paradise on earth. However, the occasional birds and beasts flying by and screeching add a touch of eeriness and desolation.

Lin Wantang quickly dismounted and, together with Li Jinzhi, hid the horses and luggage. They hurriedly hid in the bushes and changed their clothes. When they came out again, all three of them looked like ragged, disheveled beggars.

Lin Wantang was still worried that it wasn't realistic enough, so she grabbed some dirt from the ground and rubbed it on herself, making her look as if she had fled from the Central Plains. Looking at her perfectly intact shoes and socks, she finally made up her mind to take them off and walk barefoot on the ground, looking utterly disheveled.

Seeing how willing she was to go all out, Li Jinzhi and Zhang Jin also took off their shoes and socks and rolled around in the mud several times, becoming so dirty that they were almost unrecognizable.

"That's about it. When we get into the village, we'll say we're three siblings. There were originally seven brothers, but everyone else died on the way we fled the famine, leaving only the three of us."

Lin Wantang meticulously explained, also recalling what Jiang Jiusi and Wei Liu had said: there were more than twenty villages gathered in the nearby mountains and forests. Although they seemed to be falling apart, their hearts were exceptionally united in facing external threats.

Li Jinzhi nodded: "Don't let them get suspicious, otherwise it will be even more difficult to find out about the Gu poison."

Zhang Jin was a man of few words, but he remembered this and went down the mountain with the two of them again.

The mountain path was rugged, and after walking for about half an hour, a cluster of bamboo houses finally appeared ahead. The bamboo houses were built against the mountain and surrounded by bamboo forests. The smoke from the cooking fires carried the aroma of food, which made the three of them quite hungry.

At the entrance of the village, two burly men were busy working on bamboo baskets. Hearing the sound, they looked up and stared warily at the three people who were limping and staggering towards them. They mumbled a few words in Miao language.

He then pointed the bamboo stick in his hand at the three of them.

Lin Wantang frowned, then quickly stepped forward with a forced smile, saying, "Brother, please have mercy! We brothers are... refugees, we're starving..."

As he spoke, he staggered and fell to the ground.

Seeing this, Li Jinzhi didn't bother to help her up. Holding a broken rice bowl, he knelt down before the two burly men and begged, "I'm hungry, so hungry! Please have mercy and give me something to eat... Please, brothers..."

Zhang Jin cried so hard that he didn't care about being covered in dirt. He rushed over and hugged a strong man's leg, begging so much that he wanted to bow and kowtow.

Even though they couldn't understand each other's language, the two burly men exchanged a glance and could tell that the three were refugees begging for food. Although they were still wary, they couldn't resist their kind hearts. One of them dragged Lin Wantang up, while the other pulled Li Jinzhi up, and then urged Zhang Jin to follow them.

They hadn't walked far before the three were led into a large stilted house. As soon as they entered the courtyard, the two burly men released them and spoke a few words to a woman who came out from inside. The woman looked at the three of them, then turned and went back inside.

When she came out again, the woman was carrying two large bowls of thin porridge with a few vegetable leaves floating on top, and she was also holding three tsampa cakes in her hand. A strong man went in and filled another bowl of porridge, handing it to the three of them. Lin Wantang was indeed a little hungry, so she wolfed it down without a care in the world.

Li Jinzhi and Zhang Jingeng quickly finished their porridge, refilled their bowls, and then reached out to the woman, saying, "We want more! We're starving, sister, please have mercy and give us another bowl, please..."

The woman paused, glancing hesitantly at the two burly men beside her, but ultimately couldn't bear to refuse Li Jinzhi's pleading eyes. She took the large bowls from him and Zhang Jin and filled them with porridge.

Li Jinzhi and Zhang Jin ate a lot, and even the tsampa and porridge weren't enough. They ate bowl after bowl until the fifth bowl, at which point the woman became completely unhappy.

Ignoring what the two burly men were saying, she shoved Li Jinzhi and Zhang Jin, and also dragged Lin Wantang back, chasing them all out of the yard. She then locked the gate, no longer wanting to deal with them.

Lin Wantang couldn't help but glance at Li Jinzhi, somewhat complaining that he ate too much and was making people afraid of him.

The two burly men seemed to have run out of ideas, so they climbed out of the yard again and talked and gestured to the three of them. Finally, they led the three of them around the yard to the back. Only then did Lin Wantang realize that what they had just entered was the back yard, and this was the front yard.

An old man sat in a wicker chair in the front yard, slowly smoking a pipe. He seemed to have heard the commotion in the backyard. He opened his cloudy yet shrewd eyes and scanned the three people without saying a word.

Two burly men walked over and said a few words. The old man nodded, signaling them to step back. He then looked closely at the three men before finally speaking in broken but understandable Mandarin: "You're not beggars. Tell me, who are you?"

Lin Wantang was taken aback, not expecting to be seen through so quickly.

Feeling somewhat embarrassed and at a loss, she fidgeted with her fingers, glanced hesitantly at Li Jinzhi, and considered whether to be honest. Just then, the old man asked again, "You and those two from before, you wouldn't happen to be together, would you?"

Those two from before? Are you referring to Jiang Sijiu and Wei Liu?

Lin Wantang wasn't sure, nor did she dare to guess, so she pretended to be clueless: "Huh? What did you say? We really are refugees, haven't you heard? The Western Liao have attacked! They're killing and looting, we can't survive!"

Li Jinzhi seized the opportunity to quickly add, "That's right! The imperial court doesn't care about anything, and the officials just run away! It's so hard on us ordinary people! My brother and my father were beaten to death!"

Seeing this, Zhang Jin wanted to add a few more words, but the old man suddenly gave a cold laugh.

"fart!"

The old man slammed his pipe against the chair and chuckled, "You're not putting on a good show. People from the west don't speak like that."

So that's how they gave themselves away.

Lin Wantang was even more at a loss. She had come in such a hurry that she hadn’t had time to learn the local dialect of the western people. After hesitating for a moment, she steeled her heart, took a step forward, and knelt on the ground.